I would say the game is stable enough and the bugs are minor enough that it is worth playing right now. From what I have read elsewhere, this is the least broken launch for a Bethesda game.

This is an understatement for sure. I've put in nearly 60 hours since launch (yes, seriously), and I've had exactly one CTD. And that was when I alt-tabbed out of the game. That's it.

There are some smaller issues and annoyances, but outright crashes are not part of it at all.

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Tip of the day for those of you who are double-fisting magic: DON'T do it all the time! When you double-fist magic (pushing both mouse buttons at the same time, so you do the not-Hadoken animation), it costs 120% mana of normal (per hand), for only 105% of damage (per hand), plus the stun if you happen to have the perk.

It's a nice opener, or something to do if you need to take a step back from somebody, but for general casting, push one button then push the other a moment later to get both hands to cast individually. The minor damage bonus isn't worth the greater expenditure of magic in the end.

That even when you take the dual wield perk? (I forget the name?) Was that then a wasted perk?

The advice above is mostly just for those who only dabble in magic. If you specialize, this isn't a concern. The extra cost in mana is more than made up for by the perk that stuns the opponent, quite likely the single best perk I've seen in the game so far. It even stuns dragons, keeping them from attacking you at all. I can toss out about 10 double firebolts in a row before running out of mana, and even then I regenerate it very quickly. I only cast destruction spells with a single hand if an enemy is so close to death that anything more would be overkill.

What mages really need, is a ten second invulnerbility shield, that will allow you make epic stands, instead of the backpedalling while waiting for mana to regenerate. The end result is the same, its just feels more epic to be able to stand and deliver punishment instead of looking like a circusclown running in circles.

Arrrrgh! I was hoping to resist the forum effect, but then my friend told me he bought it and loved it. This was coming from someone who didn't like the previous Morrowind and Oblivion games. So that was the last straw. Broke down and got it last night.

As for me, the last Elder Scrolls game I played was Morrowind. Holy crap this is way better than Morrowind! The only things I remember from Morrowind was that getting around seemed dreadfully slow, bashing mudcrabs around the village to level up was dreadfully boring, and reading the NPC dialogue was only slightly better than trying to read the many books scattered around the place. Skyrim in contrast starts out like an epic action movie. I'm actually fighting real people for my first few fights instead of mudcrabs! The hearing the NPCs talk is much better than reading a wall of text! And the environment feel wondrously alive and vibrant. Anyway, looking forward to playing more tonight!

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A Pew Research Center poll found nearly half of Americans hold the false belief that TARP was passed under President Obama, while only 34 percent know it originated under Bush."Oh yeah?" Bush replied. "50% of the people were wrong."

That's funny, people were actually playing Morrowind like an MMO and grinding mobs? I just did the quests in Morrowind and never felt the need to grind anything.

So, with regards to generalizing, I'm not really having any trouble with it so far but it might be because it's still early in the game? I'm level 16. My crafted, enchanted armour and weapons are still better than anything I found in dungeons. I'm trained in 1-handed, block, heavy armour, alteration, smithing, enchanting and alchemy with perks in all of these. I've also leveled up a few other skills like archery, sneaking, lockpicking. Combat is still relatively easy.

It's also not the most secure of combinations systems. Only 3 symbols per ring and 3 rings only nets about 27 permutations. If someone is really stuck, they could get through that in not too long a chunk of time if they had the claw and couldn't figure it out.

Yeah, but when you shoot a dozen arrows at someone for each failed password attempt, it helps discourage repeat tries.

The advice above is mostly just for those who only dabble in magic. If you specialize, this isn't a concern. The extra cost in mana is more than made up for by the perk that stuns the opponent, quite likely the single best perk I've seen in the game so far. It even stuns dragons, keeping them from attacking you at all. I can toss out about 10 double firebolts in a row before running out of mana, and even then I regenerate it very quickly. I only cast destruction spells with a single hand if an enemy is so close to death that anything more would be overkill.

If you specialize and stack -Mana Cost items (yes, it's additive, not multiplicative). Yes, that means that you can bring the cost of spells down to zero.

Also, because you can't restun an opponent that's already stunned (you have to wait until they're moving again), not chaining double-fisting allows you more damage faster. And all of this gets thrown out the window when you have multiple targets engaging you.

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"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

The advice above is mostly just for those who only dabble in magic. If you specialize, this isn't a concern. The extra cost in mana is more than made up for by the perk that stuns the opponent, quite likely the single best perk I've seen in the game so far. It even stuns dragons, keeping them from attacking you at all. I can toss out about 10 double firebolts in a row before running out of mana, and even then I regenerate it very quickly. I only cast destruction spells with a single hand if an enemy is so close to death that anything more would be overkill.

If you specialize and stack -Mana Cost items (yes, it's additive, not multiplicative). Yes, that means that you can bring the cost of spells down to zero.

Also, because you can't restun an opponent that's already stunned (you have to wait until they're moving again), not chaining double-fisting allows you more damage faster. And all of this gets thrown out the window when you have multiple targets engaging you.

When fighting single opponents I don't need to do damage fast. Dual-casting a spell keeps the opponent stun-locked until dead. When fighting multiple opponents I'll stun one or two and deal with the rest quickly. I usually kill normal enemies in one shot however. Tougher enemies take 2-3 shots. Bosses take 5-10. I honestly haven't had any real challenges in several levels, even when encountering groups of mages.

ah, i see. yeah, those things are incredibly tough. bears are as well. it's a little odd that dragons are equal to or lesser than those two in most cases.

It's another problem with the level scaling. The dragons seem to always match your level so that you can keep fighting them throughout the entire game, but the result is oddities like dragons losing fights against low-level creatures in the early game, which makes them look like total wimps and ruins the illusion. It would have been better if there were several types of dragons, with the early game only setting you up against young dragons while the later game sends you against progressively older ones. They could even have worked that into the story with ease, having older dragons take a longer time to wake up than the younger ones do. Instead we're left with inconsistent and sometimes outright silly dragon power.

What mages really need, is a ten second invulnerbility shield, that will allow you make epic stands, instead of the backpedalling while waiting for mana to regenerate. The end result is the same, its just feels more epic to be able to stand and deliver punishment instead of looking like a circusclown running in circles.

get the stutter perk and never worry again. only time i have issues is when i run out of magicka and didn't notice in time.

ah, i see. yeah, those things are incredibly tough. bears are as well. it's a little odd that dragons are equal to or lesser than those two in most cases.

It's another problem with the level scaling. The dragons seem to always match your level so that you can keep fighting them throughout the entire game, but the result is oddities like dragons losing fights against low-level creatures in the early game, which makes them look like total wimps and ruins the illusion. It would have been better if there were several types of dragons, with the early game only setting you up against young dragons while the later game sends you against progressively older ones. They could even have worked that into the story with ease, having older dragons take a longer time to wake up than the younger ones do. Instead we're left with inconsistent and sometimes outright silly dragon power.

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Warning: You will see my penis. -Brian

Just remember: once a user figures out gluten noting them they're allowed to make fun of you. - Ceekay speaking in tongues.

Has anyone had success playing a mage-warrior hybrid? I've been trying a light armor, one handed, destruction and alteration build, and while he started really strong, spark, flames and frostbite just aren't cutting it anymore on level 16 bad guys. I feel like I'm in a power slump until I get access to the expert level spells. I really like the flexibilty of the mage-warrior type, but I need to either get my destruction skill much higher (currently 40), or get some stronger spells eventually. It also seems like destruction levels up really slow considering I use it all the time, even with the mage sign. I'm starting to wonder if there's a bug with the signs that are supposed to grant faster skill advancement.

Has anyone had success playing a mage-warrior hybrid? I've been trying a light armor, one handed, destruction and alteration build, and while he started really strong, spark, flames and frostbite just aren't cutting it anymore on level 16 bad guys. I feel like I'm in a power slump until I get access to the expert level spells. I really like the flexibilty of the mage-warrior type, but I need to either get my destruction skill much higher (currently 40), or get some stronger spells eventually. It also seems like destruction levels up really slow considering I use it all the time, even with the mage sign. I'm starting to wonder if there's a bug with the signs that are supposed to grant faster skill advancement.

No. That is what I was going for, but everything i'm reading says that magic isn't scaling well at high levels. You will be able to finish the game this way, but it will be tougher than going tank, archer/thief or dps. The key to high level magic is better mana consumption perks/gear so you don't burn through your bar after 5 fireballs (4 of which will miss)

I like firebolt. I'll actually avoid the killing blow with it so I can blast my enemy and watch their smoldering corpse tumble through the air. I actually blasted a bandit archer off of the bridge that was in the picture Kathode posted and it was quite satisfying watching their lively meat sack cartwheel into the river below and then float over the falls.

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Because I can,also because I don't care what you want.XBL: OriginalCeeKayWii U: CeeKay

I killed a skeleton that was on a huge cliff with my bow from down below. I turned and started walking away then I heard bones crackling and thought there was one on the ground coming after me. Nope it was just the previous skeletons hands rolling down the hill beside me. Just his hands.

What is the story with the Forsworn? I ran into several of their encampments while trying to make it to the Red Eagle Cairn. I haven't seen any books about them yet

Also, anyone know how the soul gem progression works? Which souls go into which gems. I've been trapping humans which I thought would fit into empty common soul gems, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

WP - If you are a sneaky git, and use light armor, the muffled movement is precious! I can stand almost in front of people with it, and them not seeing or hearing me while I move - its really good for my playstyle.

Has anyone had success playing a mage-warrior hybrid? I've been trying a light armor, one handed, destruction and alteration build, and while he started really strong, spark, flames and frostbite just aren't cutting it anymore on level 16 bad guys. I feel like I'm in a power slump until I get access to the expert level spells. I really like the flexibilty of the mage-warrior type, but I need to either get my destruction skill much higher (currently 40), or get some stronger spells eventually. It also seems like destruction levels up really slow considering I use it all the time, even with the mage sign. I'm starting to wonder if there's a bug with the signs that are supposed to grant faster skill advancement.

No. That is what I was going for, but everything i'm reading says that magic isn't scaling well at high levels. You will be able to finish the game this way, but it will be tougher than going tank, archer/thief or dps. The key to high level magic is better mana consumption perks/gear so you don't burn through your bar after 5 fireballs (4 of which will miss)

While working my way through the mage college storyline, I started to realize that the game seems to be balanced for dual casting destruction. The way I was trying to play, casting destruction spells from one hand and wacking things with a weapon in my other, limited my magic damage/utility. As soon as I put the sword away and started dual casting (I took the destruction perks for dual casting too), that's when I started melting bad guys in the level range of 16-20. It really made a difference. That said, I was still swapping to my sword when I ran out of magika, or when I wanted to melee instead of cast.

I had fun experimenting with different dual casting options, like hitting bad guys with frost from one hand, followed immediately by fire/lightning from the other. I tried some adept spells last night too (Fireball and Ice Storm). They're good, I just need to pickup the perk that reduces the power cost for adept spells.

against my better judgement I joined the thieves guild last night. for thief skills I've only spent perk points in lockpicking, guess I might have to start paying attention to pickpocketing and sneaking now too.

ran into some different spiders last night. saw them and figured they were the wimps from the beginning, but then two of them promptly womped my level 8 ass as my firebolt only seemed to tickle them. reloaded only to realize they were directly in the path of where I wanted to go, so I weaponed up and sallied forth. I rendered their jumping attack useless by luring them into an area with trees, and kept circling around them so if they did jump they hit a tree and not me. in the end I barely managed to finish them with only a sliver of health left, no stamina and no magicka.

on another note it seems like most of my finishing moves aren't switching to third person anymore- I'll still do them but I'll see the animation through the first person camera.

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Because I can,also because I don't care what you want.XBL: OriginalCeeKayWii U: CeeKay

Does Muffled Movement on the Sneak tree make a big difference on light armor? I have no idea how much 50% quieter armor will help since I have no idea how much my armor noise is giving me away.

I got that perk even though I use heavy armor, and it helped a ton for me. I can now scout out rooms without getting immediately detected, and if I'm both crouching and slow-walking then I can get up right behind guys without being detected.

Previously I would just randomly go from not detected at all (flat line in middle of the screen) to fully open eye detected and never really know why. It was frustrating.